EU tourism nights up by 2.3% in first half of 2025

In the first half of 2025, there were 1 279 million overnight stays in tourist accommodations across the EU, a 2.3% increase compared with the first 6 months of 2024 (1 249 million). 

At country level, Malta (12.7%), Latvia (8.6%) and Poland (8.5%) had the highest increases in the share of overnight stays in tourism accommodation in the first 6 months of this year compared with the same period of last year. Meanwhile, Ireland recorded a fall (-3.5%), and Germany (+0.2%), Sweden (+0.5%) and Belgium (+0.9%) reported the lowest increases.    

Source dataset: tour_occ_nim

Foreign visitors (non-residents of the country, EU and non-EU) accounted for almost half (48.0%) of all overnight stays in the first half of 2025, with large differences among EU countries. The biggest share of foreign overnight stays at the beginning of the year was recorded in Malta (93.6%), Cyprus (93.1%) and Croatia (87.6%).

By contrast, foreign guests accounted for less than one-fifth of overnight stays in Germany (18.5%), Poland (19.2%) and Romania (20.2%).

The rise in nights spent by foreign visitors in the first half of 2025 (+3.1% compared with the first half of 2024) was a little more pronounced than the growth in domestic nights (+1.7%).

The largest increases in overnight stays by foreign visitors were recorded in Malta (+13.0%), Latvia (+12.8%) and Finland (+12.3%). At the other end of the range, Ireland (-6.1%), Sweden (-5.3%) and Germany (-2.9%) were the only countries that experienced a decline.

This article marks World Tourism Day, celebrated on 27 September.